Hunt Me (Love Thieves #3) (8 page)

“Buenas dias, señorita Hardwicke.
¿
Como estas?”

“Bien, Enrique. Bien. ¿Y tu?”

“
Asi asi.
I cannot complain. What do you need?” Enrique Tomavar worked at the British Embassy in Spain during her father’s brief tenure as ambassador. He was the first man to teach her how to hide in plain sight. The British ambassador’s abysmally low popularity rating meant constant threats to the family. Enrique created her first fake ID and taught her how to blend in when she didn’t want to be seen. Since his resume included positions like military and government attaché, she often suspected he worked as a spy—but his affection for her remained constant.

As did his ability to fetch her in difficult times. If not for Enrique, she wouldn’t have been able to get out of Morocco last year.

“I can’t simply call to say hello?”

“This late, in Los Angeles? I doubt that.” He always knew her location, too. Useful when she had to send him a 911—frustrating every other time.

“Fair point. I need some information about a man named Jarod Parker.”

“Basic rundown, or are you looking for something more specific?” Bless him, he never asked her why.

“I want to know if he is who he says he is.”

“And who does he say he is,
querida
?”

“A banker.” She saw her exit and slowed to follow it.

“And you think not?”

“He took down Louis duMonde with a thumb lock in under ten seconds. I didn’t even see him move. He also managed to smuggle himself aboard my private jet.”

Silence, then, “Is he threatening you?”

“No. The opposite, actually. But I don’t know him, and I don’t think he’s being honest.”

More silence.

“I will find out what you need to know. Stay away until I have confirmation,
querida
.”

“Already done. Don’t call back. I’m going to kill the phone and dump it. I’ll call you tomorrow from a burner.” She had six of them in a locker, and they were easily purchased.

“
Adios, cuidate.”

“
Adios
.” They rang off, and she merged into traffic on the boulevard. It took her fifteen minutes of cruising to find the right woman with the right height. She slowed and rolled down the passenger window.

The redhead leaned down to glance inside and gave her a dubious look. “Sorry, Prada. I like men.”

“Perfect. I have a thousand dollars in cash and it’s all yours if you don’t mind swapping clothes, driving my car until 6:00 p.m. tonight, and giving someone a message for me.”

“I’m sorry, what?” The woman blinked.

Thirty minutes later, Kit waved to Georgia, the woman whose clothes she’d purchased, as she drove off in the sedan. Kit had nothing on her save for one key and a paperback book. She didn’t know if he’d done something to keep track of her, but his actions coupled with Louis’ sudden appearance, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

She walked down to the bus station and straight to a locker. Opening it, she pulled out a duffel bag and checked to make sure the lock on the bag remained in place. Slinging it over her shoulder, she walked down the concourse to the ticket window where a sleepy man flipped through a magazine.

“Do you have any coaches leaving for Half Moon Bay today?” She chewed gum, which distracted from her accent, and kept the black hat low over her eyes. She had tucked all of her red hair underneath it. The tank top and skinny jeans were thankfully nondescript, and she could buy some comfortable shoes. She’d miss the Jimmy Choos she gave to Georgia.

The man sat forward and tapped some info into his computer. “Coach leaves at seven. Sixty-eight seventy-five, round-trip.”

“Perfect.” She counted out the cash, mostly in tens, fives, and singles. Never be without cash, Enrique told her. She could leave cash stores in various places, so if she needed to slip away unnoticed, she wouldn’t leave a trace with her credit cards or private security. Secondly, keep the cash in low denominations. It made most people impatient to wait for someone to count it out, and then they paid attention to other things. Nothing zeroed a retail or transportation clerk in more than crisp fifty and one hundred-dollar bills.

She made sure to wash and dry any new money she took out of the bank to give it a rumpled, ill-used appearance. She handed him sixty-nine dollars and got a quarter and her ticket back.

“Have a nice trip.” But the clerk had already returned to his magazine.

She checked the bus number and her watch, after four-thirty. She left the terminal and walked around the corner to a coffee shop. Sliding into a seat in the back, she wedged the duffel bag between her and the wall. Propping her feet on the opposite bench, she pulled out the book.

“What can I get ya?” a woman on the sad side of her forties with tired eyes and an even worse dye job asked.

“Coffee, please.” She resisted the urge to spit out her gum. Soon enough for that when she didn’t have to talk and could drink her coffee instead. “And bacon and eggs—eggs over hard, bacon crisp, and, if you have them, hash browns extra crispy.”

“Toast?” The waitress wrote it down.

“Hmm—whole wheat with some jam as well.”

“You got it.”

Kit didn’t have to worry about the waitress paying attention to her; the woman’s gaze skipped twice to her watch in the time she wrote down the order. She wanted to go home, which meant she’d deliver the food and coffee and leave her be.

Glancing at her watch, Kit flipped the book open to the dog-eared page and settled in to wait for her bus.

But the words blurred against the page.
Jarod isn’t a banker.
She’d never seen him before the meeting, and he was right about one thing—she did notice people. She knew every employee she’d ever met, on sight if not by name. She could always tell when she’d met someone before and didn’t recognize them—the spark in their eyes, the friendly surprise and ease in their expressions. She knew and reacted accordingly.

He demonstrated none of those qualities.

But he knew me. I wasn’t such great a mystery to him…and he appeared really worried about what Miles told me on the phone.

So either he ran a con on Miles….

Or he found out about the Raphael. The Raphael she’d seen in Miles’ collection six months before and knew didn’t belong there. At the time, she’d said nothing. After all, it took a thief to know a thief.

And she was an exceptionally talented thief.

This is all supposition. Maybe he saw me as a potential bankroll for his business efforts.
The thought didn’t live very long because he sure as hell didn’t kiss like he wanted her money.

He wanted her.

The waitress returned with the coffee and breakfast. She added some sugar and cream to her cup and stirred it. Maybe she owed Jarod the benefit of the doubt. He could like her. She wasn’t an unattractive a woman. His reasons for following the plane, for getting on board—hell, even his actions at the airport could all have a plausible explanation.

Or he could just want the Buddha—like everyone else.

A shiver raced up her spine, and, she wasn’t afraid to admit, a wave of disappointment followed. If all Jarod wanted was the artifact, he would be sorely disappointed. Her appetite waned at the thought. The door opened at the front of the diner. She watched a couple of construction workers pad in, yawning. They took seats at the front counter.

She cut into her eggs and ignored the doubts niggling in the back of her mind. She had forty-eight hours to finish this, and then it would be over and done with. Years of hunting, globe hopping, and flirting with danger and she could finally put the entire matter of
The
Fortunate Buddha
to rest.

Focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel, and not the fact she already missed Jarod’s company, helped her finish her breakfast. She watched the door every time it opened. She didn’t need Jarod or Louis finding her right now. Once she boarded the bus, she’d disappear.

This was what she wanted. Unfortunately, every time the door did open and it wasn’t Jarod, her stomach sank.

Stop it.
She picked up the book and forced herself to read. At least the seventeenth century spy novel’s heroine got to sleep with the man she stole her information from—all well and good until he found out what she was up to and then the chase ensued.

He’d caught up to the dangerous duchess, and it didn’t take much to imagine these two in the throes of angry sex.
I wonder if Jarod thinks hot sex is what he’ll get when he catches up to Georgia.

The image of his face when he discovered her ruse made her smile.

Chapter Five

The moment the redhead exited the sedan and sashayed into the coffee shop, he knew she wasn’t Kit. Biting back a curse, Jarod backed his car into a parking space, locked it up, and followed the woman inside. She stood at the counter, ordering a triple foam nightmare creation. From a distance, the color of her hair seemed similar, but, up close, looked too brassy. The way she moved, hard and jerky, appearing too defensive, didn’t fit Kit either. She stalked forward as though hoping to intimidate others into leaving her alone, all brash and flash without the natural sensuality or smooth seduction.

He’d traced the wrong woman. Slipping back outside, he checked the car. Kit’s. Her bag and purse sat on the passenger seat in bold statement. Checking his phone, the GPS told him he was right on top of the tracker. Thumbing it off, he slid the phone into his pocket and leaned back against the car to wait.

The redhead emerged with a tall cup in her hand. She saw him immediately. Her relaxed expression stiffened, becoming almost predatory. He stared at her as she strode toward him. “You must be Jarod.”

Surprise flared in his gut, like a match being struck against wood, burning away doubt. “And you are?”

“I’m Georgia.” She grinned. The faint yellowing of her teeth didn’t detract from the warmth the expression added to her face.

“Good evening, Georgia.” He infused the words with a patience he didn’t really feel. “This isn’t your car, is it?”

“Well, not exactly. But, I do have a slip signed over to me and legal permission to drive it for as long as I wish.” She took a long swallow of coffee. The lines around her eyes were tight with worry, and, despite the friendly curve of her lips, the corners of her mouth seemed strained.

“Well, if I were to call the police….”

“Look, I don’t want any trouble. You’re Jarod, so I can answer your questions. If you were the other guy, I wouldn’t have even come back out of the coffee shop.”

The other guy. duMonde?
His eyes narrowed as she juggled her coffee cup and reached into her purse to pull out—Kit’s cell phone. He recognized the case. Hell, he recognized her whole ensemble. Georgia wore a two thousand dollar pantsuit and four thousand dollar shoes. She thumbed the screen on and flipped from text messages to photos and held it up.

“See, this is you.” Clearly a photo of him sitting across from Kit on the plane. When did the little vixen snap the shot? “And this is the other guy.”

The other, indeed duMonde, but the photo came from a distance and looked saved from the Internet.

“All right, so you can talk to me. Talk.”

“First, let me say I am only the messenger. She promised me you wouldn’t shoot me for saying this.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “She’s right. I won’t.”

“She said to tell you, ‘Make it three to three, now we’re tied.’”  Georgia punctuated the sentence with a pair of kissing sounds.

His eyebrows climbed.

“Hey, the kisses were from her. She made me repeat it four times, until I had it down.”

A headache gathered in the back of his skull. “When did she do this?”

Georgia swallowed another mouthful of coffee before answering. “Last night. She cruised the boulevard. Took her for a high roller. They like to slum it, sometimes. Course, I don’t do chicks.” She gave him the once over, and he ignored the speculative invitation in her eyes. “Anyway, she offered me a grand—cash—and all I had to do was swap clothes and drive her car around until at least 6:00 p.m. tonight. She told me there were two men who might be looking for her. You were okay, but I should avoid the other guy at all costs.”

The pain in his head began to hammer. Twice, he’d underestimated Lady Hardwicke’s resourcefulness. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. “And that’s it?”

“Pretty much. She gave me her phone, and there’s a digital tablet in the car and some files.” She shrugged. “She waved me off, and it was the last I saw of her.” She closed her eyes a half second and glanced down during her answer.

“Really?” He didn’t know her well enough to assume the deflection a lie, but the guilt trailing through her gaze told him to hang onto this thread.

“Okay, maybe I circled the block a couple of times to make sure she wasn’t screwing me over.”

“She just gave you a thousand dollars in cash. She didn’t have time to screw you over.” And Georgia was only a pawn in the game. No need to sacrifice her or make her task unnecessarily hard.

The woman flushed a faint shade of crimson, and guilt worried the lines around her mouth. “True. But it’s one hell of an expensive car and a lot of cash. No one’s that nice just to ask you to drive around and not be up to no good. So…maybe I watched where she went, and maybe I made sure there wasn’t a body in the trunk before I hit a freeway.”

He didn’t smile, but he couldn’t fault her logic. “So, where did she go?”

“Bus station. Crazy chick. She has all kinds of cash and this car, and she heads to the bus station? Why would anyone go there?”

Because a bus had less security, and no one would look for the heiress to the Hardwicke fortunes aboard one. Jarod pulled a hundred out of his wallet and handed it to her. “I want her things from the car.”

“Hey, all yours. Do you want the car?” Concern and uncertainty flickered in her expression.

“Nope. You can keep it.” He waited for the telltale beep indicating she’d unlocked it then grabbed the bags and jacket. “And I need her phone.”